Versatile but short lived

Sony is one of those global behemoths that can pretty much do what it wants
without having to worry about losing forged alliances. So it's not surprising
that the Japanese entertainment electronics giant is the first vendor in
Australia to release a notebook using AMD's latest mobile processor, the Athlon
XP-M.

Although the chip has been available for the better part of a year, all the
other vendors in Australia have been shy to use it. The Vaio PCG-FR720 has a
good array of features for its $2499 price tag. The 15-inch active-matrix LCD
screen features 1024x768-pixel resolution and is powered by NVIDIA's GeForce4
420 Go graphics controller, fast enough to handle Quake III-vintage games at
better than 50 frames a second at the screen's native resolution. Its Fujitsu
40GB hard disk drive is average for this class but the QSI SB-241 CD-RW/DVD-ROM
combo drive gives you versatility for storage and DVD movies. The Fujitsu drive,
though, is reasonably zippy, churning through 4150KB of data per second. The
processor itself is the Athlon XP-M 2200+ chip, accompanied by 256MB of DDR
memory - it's a reasonable combination with better than expected performance on
both Office XP and multimedia/content-creation applications. You'll find,
however, that more memory will help the performance in this latter area. One way
you can tell a budget notebook is whether or not it includes a 3.5-inch floppy
disk drive - this one does. As is typical with Sony notebooks, the PCG-FR720
features a good array of peripheral ports including one FireWire port, a
composite video output, three USB ports along with the standard V.90 modem and
Fast Ethernet network interface. On the surface, the performance puts it close
to a 2.2GHz Pentium 4-M processor so the "2200+" moniker in the processor name
is fairly accurate, despite the fact that it only chugs along at 1.67GHz.
However, there are a couple of drawbacks you should consider. The first of these
is the weight - at more than 3.5-kilograms this is no ultralight notebook. The
second is the comparatively poor battery life. Typically with a 2.2GHz Pentium
4-M based notebook you can expect two hours' battery life with all power
management features switched off. The FR720's 14.4-volt Lithium-ion battery
could barely even hit 75 minutes before throwing in the towel - not what you'd
call a stellar performance. AMD's PowerNow power management system will improve
the battery life but at the cost of performance. In any case, less than 80
minutes' battery life isn't a great start position. Overall, these last two
issues - the weight and poor battery life - do pull down its value, despite its
good performance at this price, and it's enough to suggest AMD still has some
work to do to make a fist of the notebook market. If you're in the hunt for a
good notebook, check the models featuring Intel's Pentium-M processor - you'll
get performance, battery life and low weight all in the one package.

Inkjet printers are well and truly "cash and carry" items these days, with
some models not much more expensive than the ink cartridges they print with.
Canon's i250 and i350 entry-level bubble jet printers use Canon's Advanced
MicroFine Droplet Technology to offer up to 4800 dpi colour resolution. The i350
prints up to 16 pages per minute in black and up to 11 in colour, the i250
printing 12ppm and 9ppm respectively. Both printers come with applications for
easily printing photos and web pages.

Easy-PhotoPrint takes advantage of Exif Print compatible digital camera
images and Easy-WebPrint simplifies the printing of internet pages by scaling
down the output so that information is not lost from the right-hand margin of
the page. Both printers are compatible with Windows 98 and above, Mac OS 8.6 to
9.x and Mac OS X version 10.2.1 to 10.2.x.

Canon's i250 bubble jet printer retails for $99 and the i350 for $139.
For more details call 1800 021 167 or visit www.canon.com.au

Play it cool

Notebook PCs might be good lap warmers on a cold winter's night but you can
have too much of a good thing - just ask the Swedish scientist who, according to
a story in the British medical journal The Lancet, burned his groin
last year while resting a notebook on his lap. Targus's LapDesk is designed to
help you keep your cool and provides a solid and rigid work surface on which to
rest a notebook. Weighing only 624 grams, the LapDesk is sturdy enough to
support the heaviest portable and folds to 28.5 x 27 x 1.6cm thick.

A non-slip surface top and bottom keeps both desk and computer firmly in
place, and there is an adjustable foot arrangement to increase cooling
airflow.

4D Australasia has released 4D Business Kit 2.0 for creating easy-to-manage
online shopfronts. It combines a web server, multi-store manager and database in
an end-to-end e-commerce system. It allows multiple parties to update the web
storefront from different locations. Other features include catalogue, shopping
cart, tax calculations, multi-currency handling, shipping, customer management,
order tracking and support for transaction processors. The tax module can
automatically calculate taxes according to geographical information from the
end-user. 4D Business Kit 2.0 also contains an improved Application Program
Interface to simplify integration with proxy servers, Dreamweaver MX and
Sophisticated Circuits' UpBeat technology. It can run in stand-alone mode or
integrate with other web servers, such as 4D WebSTAR, Apache and MS IIS.

Just as PC manufacturers are abandoning boring beige boxes on the desktop,
Upsonic's latest range of Uninterruptable Power Supplies is available in black.
The LanSaver 3200 is the first of the new-look black products and initially will
be available in tower format only.

Upsilon 2000 intelligent monitoring software for Windows/Linux is bundled
with the LS3200, as well as an IEC to 3-Pin Australian socket adaptor. Surge
protection for phone lines is also supplied via in-built RJ11 jacks. Advanced
boost and buck voltage regulation enables it to accept input voltages from 171
to 278 volts while delivering a safe and secure output voltage without drawing
on the internal batteries.

Increasing processing power has seen multimedia applications liven up
formerly static, silent websites and presentations. Build Your Own: PC
Recording Studio introduces readers to the digital audio recording process
and guides them through assembling a digital recording studio for creating music
for CDs, presentations and the internet. Initial chapters examine constructing a
PC and choosing music and audio peripherals, after which the book covers
recording, editing, mixing, processing and mastering music using a TASCAM US-428
audio/MIDI interface and Cubase SX software. It wraps up with tips on setting up
a home studio and maintaining your system. This book isn't as vendor and
component-specific as some books in the Build Your Own series but the author
makes some useful recommendations. Your average computer is a noisy beast,
though, and more attention could be paid to choosing vendor-specific quiet
components such as the power supply, fans, monitor, graphics card and hard
drives.